Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoSANA | AP photoSyrian President Bashar Assad, fifth left in front row, attends the Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan at the Khair mosque, in Damascus, Syria.

BEIRUT -- More than 2,000 Syrians - almost half of them pro-government forces - have been killed
in just over two weeks of fighting in Syria, making it one of the worst death tolls in the
country's civil war, opposition activists said today.

The report reflects a recent surge in deadly attacks by the al-Qaida-breakaway Islamic State
group targeting government forces, signaling shifting priorities as Sunni militants seek to
consolidate power in areas under their control.

President Bashar Assad's forces have gained momentum in the fighting with rebels seeking to
topple him from power. Infighting also has hurt the rebel cause, with Islamic extremists battling
moderate fighters.

The recent attacks came after Assad was re-elected last month to a third, seven-year term in
a vote that was confined to government-controlled areas and dismissed by the opposition and its
Western-allies as a sham. In his inauguration speech on July 16, he confidently declared victory
and praised his supporters for "defeating the dirty war" against Syria.

Assad prayed at a Damascus mosque at the start of a major Muslim holiday on today, smiling as
he was shown on state TV greeting Muslim clergymen at the Khair mosque in his second public
appearance in less than two weeks.

Since his inauguration, fighters from the Islamic State group have launched attacks against
army positions in three different provinces in northern and central Syria. In the past week alone,
the militants captured a government-controlled gas field and two major army bases in three
different provinces.

More than 300 soldiers, guards and workers at the Shaer field were reported killed by Islamic
State militants in a three-day blitz offensive to capture the field. The army recaptured Shaer at
the weekend.

Militants last week also overran the sprawling Division 17 military base in the northern
Raqqa province, killing at least 85 soldiers inside. Amateur videos posted online by activists
showed more than a dozen beheaded bodies in a busy square said to be in Raqqa. Some of the heads
were placed on a nearby fence, where at least two headless bodies were crucified. The videos
appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events.

Yesterday, the militants seized the army's Regiment 121 at Maylabieh in the northern Hassakeh
province after a three-day battle.

In the past, Islamic State fighters and government forces have largely avoided engaging each
other, triggering accusations among mainstream Syrian rebels fighting to topple Assad that the two
sides were colluding against them.

Those accusations have been blunted by the recent fighting, which suggests the Islamic State
is fighting on all fronts in its quest to expand territory under its control in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 2,000 people have been
killed since Assad's inauguration speech on July 16, nearly half of them soldiers and
government-allied militiamen.

It didn't provide a breakdown for the rest of the casualties, which would include civilians
and opposition fighters.

"These are the highest losses for regime forces suffered in the space of 10 days since the
uprising against Assad began" in March 2011, said Rami Abdurrahman, the director of the
Observatory. The group documents losses on the opposition and government side through a network of
activists on the ground in Syria.

Other activists in Syria confirmed that past weeks have seen a record death toll.

The Britain-based Observatory said in July that 171,000 people have been killed since the
conflict began in March 2011. At that time, it said the dead included 39,036 government forces,
24,655 pro-government gunmen, 15,422 opposition fighters, 2,354 army defectors and more than 500
Lebanese fighters from the Hezbollah militant group that is backing Assad. The rest were mostly
civilians.

However, the Syrian government has not reported on the heavy losses.

Beyond Syria, the Islamic State fighters have also seized large swaths of land in northern
and western Iraq in a blitz offensive that began last month, and have declared a self-styled
caliphate across the territory they now control, straddling the Iraq-Syria border.